


I Don't Need a Photograph ('Cause You Never Leave My Mind)

by chinesebakery



Category: Fleabag (TV)
Genre: (okay not really), Alternate Universe - Online Dating, Epistolary, F/M, Just Roll With It, Sexting, Texting, The Priest is on Tinder, it's called suspension of (dis)belief for a reason
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-03-05 23:11:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18838711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chinesebakery/pseuds/chinesebakery
Summary: A woman teetering on the edge of disaster and an achingly lonely priest find themselves in desperate need for human connection. Luckily, there's an app for that!





	1. Congratulations! You've been matched with: BadFeminist.

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to Tinylittletext who came up with basically everything cool and fun about this story.

> _“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”_ _  
> _ – Winnie the Pooh

On most days, he managed to keep it under wraps, the constant nagging of negative emotions. Hollowness, nostalgia, self-doubt, isolation. Loneliness, now that was the fucking worst. Having a few drinks by himself late at night was a familiar crutch, and it usually helped a bit, if only on the surface. It was like sanding the top layer of his misery. The morning saw him raw and more vulnerable than before. He’d never been a man who had polish to spare.

It was happening more and more frequently. Too frequently, he knew – something about apples and trees. But the nights were just so damn long when you had no one to talk to and too much on your mind.

Perhaps he was being tested. But how long did those tests usually carry on for?

There was a network of mutual assistance, in his line of work, of course. A support group of priests, old and young, jaded or earnest, that he could talk to in his times of need. He’d tried that a few times. He had talked, prayed, chanted and confessed, but such was his path that he would always live with a measure of doubt. _This_ was the life he’d been hoping for and yet, after sunset, it too often felt put on. A scam. A costume to tear off at night when his darkness hit.

He relished his part as a father figure to his flock, and for the first time in his life, trusted that he was spreading more good than bad into the world. And yet, he couldn’t help but brood – when was the last time someone had asked him how he was feeling? Had shown a genuine interest in him as a person, rather than a function? He’d weighed the pros and cons of embracing celibacy before he took his vows, but what he hadn't anticipated was the loss of… everything else. Simple conversation. The joy of meeting new people and getting to know them, not as the person standing between them and absolution, but as a living, breathing human being. _Flirting._

God, he missed flirting. For an awkward oddball such as himself, he'd been awfully good at it, back in the day. He always liked a woman who could make him laugh.

He'd been thinking about this for weeks with increasing fervour, how much he missed that part of his old life, more than any other. More than the freedom to come and go as he pleased. More than sex itself.

The idea had appeared, almost fully-formed, when he'd read something in the papers about some new counter-trend text-based dating app. The app prided itself on _not_ being a catalogue of faces or a repository of staged, flattering outdoorsy pictures. It didn't push users to flaunt their best, likely digitally enhanced physical assets and in fact, you couldn't exchange pictures directly through the app at all. Its entire selling point was to bring people closer through the power of good conversation. Have people talk to each other in whatever depth they wished to.

The concept was excessively appealing.

He’d never used any of the modern dating apps himself, but he had heard _a_ _lot_ about them from his side of the confessional. Tales of compulsive urges, habitual lying and adultery, unabashed objectification of others… all transgressions he was ashamed to admit to having committed himself in his former life. He would never chance reverting back to a version of himself he despised.

But something Mrs Pearce had told him after last Friday night gathering kept playing in his head on a loop like an annoyingly infectious pop song: "All you need is a place to be and a way to feel, a space to figure out where you belong."

Although, now he was thinking about it, it could have been JLo. No, definitely JLo. Dear Lord, he was truly losing his mind.

What good old Mrs. Pearce had told him, while patting his shoulder in placation, was that surely, there were some nice young folk who’d feel blessed to make his acquaintance. Good God, was it really that obvious, how fucking miserable he'd become? All the nice young folks should have something better to do than befriend an isolated, troubled priest in the hubbub of suburban London. It was hopeless to wish for someone to just walk up to him and bail him out of his misery. It was entirely up to him to snap himself out of his sorry state.

And he just might have found a way.

***

When all was said and done, forsaking sex was a lot more tedious than she thought it would be. She'd imagined her voluntary celibacy would allow her to focus her time and energy elsewhere, freeing her to try a number of new and exciting activities. And she had, initially – although the excitement had faded in a matter of a few weeks.

She'd learned to knit, water paint, jog for nearly thirty minutes without dying, make her own maki sushi, crochet a _very_ approximative scarf (she'd never really gotten the hang of that), and play a rather decent game of tennis. She'd joined and promptly left a book club, a boot camp gym class and a cooking class. She'd tried fencing once, but brandishing a sword wasn't nearly as exciting as she'd hoped it would be.

The harder she tired, the more difficult it was getting for her to ignore that life was, in fact, exceedingly, inexorably _dull._

She went to work, then back home, microwaved her dinner, then it was time to either read a book or find something to watch until she eventually fell asleep, and then did it all over again. When had it all become so mind-numbingly boring?

If only she had someone to talk to at the end of a too-long day, it might have made it worthwhile. There was always one anecdote or another from her customers at the café she was dying to share, and with Boo gone and her sister mad at her for allegedly attempting to seduce her garbage husband, there was no one. She might never have been a social one, but surely there was a cap on how much isolation even the most self-sufficient human being could hope to cope with?

All her witty quips, her clever observations going to waste… it was driving her crazy. It couldn't be healthy to spend so much time talking to herself. What she needed was a proper outlet.

That was her mindset as she clicked the download button for that new dating app so heavily advertised it had successively penetrated her subconscious.

She hadn't been very lucky with these kind of apps before. Her profile tended to attract aggressively misogynistic inquiries, obviously fake or heavily-tampered-with pictures, and a regular flow of dick pics maxing out her inbox capacity. Not that she had any problem with dicks in general. They'd actually been a prominent interest of hers for a solid half of her life. But those pictures? No artistry, no sense of intimacy and no eroticism whatsoever.

You couldn't send pictures on Texty, though, that was the whole point.

She could use it to flirt her head off with anonymous strangers and disappear into the night like a sexy superhero, unload all her hard-earned witticisms, perhaps even indulge in a little outrageousness and take none of the risks of an actual hookup.

There, she’d found it, the perfect loophole to her self-enforced celibacy. She gave herself a minute to revel in the pride of her own ingenuity before she began thinking about what her profile could say and immediately felt a familiar thrill of mischievousness.

Oh, but this was going to be _fun._

***

He'd been contemplating the idea for so long that when he went to take another sip, his G&T had gone almost completely flat in its can.

There it was, just a touch of the finger away, looking harmless enough. All it needed was a little tap.

A sudden thump came from the ceiling, shaking him out of his indecision. What had he done now? Oh, right, the music. It had shifted to something bass-heavy and travelled its way up to Pam. She didn't like him listening to music so late in the evening and she’d been gifted with near supernatural hearing for things she didn't approve of. Which was most things.

While he appreciated Pam’s company most of the time, and he knew it to be better than no company at all, there was something about her bulletproof righteousness that sometimes called to the rebellious and contrary teenager he’d once been.

Regretfully, he got up to turn down the volume of his battered CD player, before tottering his way back to his chair. The silence felt ominous. Oppressing. The tingle of annoyance he’d felt before grew into a consuming itch that couldn’t be ignored.

The priest took a deep breath, woke up his phone screen, and with a shiver of defiance, tapped the button.

His trepidation only grew during the long minutes it took to carefully fill the lengthy subscription form, only omitting or obfuscating what he feared might help reveal his true identity. When he was finally done, little dots began dancing on his screen.

_Hang in there while we find your best match!_

Did that sound vaguely menacing or was he just being chickenshit? He couldn’t tell dread from excitement anymore. Perhaps he shouldn’t have had that last drink. Was it supposed to take this long? It seemed truly, awfully long. Was the person on the other side of those dots getting antsy? Were they bored? Already moving on to the next thing?

His screen lit up again.

 _Congratulations! You have been matched with:_ **_BadFeminist_ ** **_  
_ ** **_“_ ** _30ish Londoner. Small tits, big mouth. Here for business advice and rodent care tips. Ascii penises will be graded for proficiency and verisimilitude. You may treat me like a filthy little bitch – I probably deserve it.”_

Oh, dear Lord. What the fuck had he just stepped into?

As he read the bio again, his initial chuckle turned to long, drawn-out laughter. Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t _that._

 **_NotASaint:_ **Hi. Before we get into business advice, I would rather be upfront in that I intend to treat you with the utmost respect. If that’s unacceptable for you, well, you may want to cut this short.

 **_BadFeminist:_ ** I’m not worried, I know how fickle men’s respect can be.

 **_NotASaint:_ **I would say I’m hurt, but that theory’s proven often enough in my line of work.

 **_BadFeminist:_ **And what would that be?

 _Shit._ Walked right into that one, hadn’t he? The priest raked his fingers through his hair.

 **_NotASaint:_ **I’m a… public servant of sorts.

 **_BadFeminist:_ ** Noted. I shall address you as your Honour from this point on.

 **_NotASaint:_ **Please don’t.

 **_BadFeminist:_ ** Yes, your Honour.

 **_NotASaint:_ **Any particular reason you’re terrorising unsuspecting fickle men at two in the morning?

 **_BadFeminist:_ **Is there really anything better to do at almost two in the morning?

 **_NotASaint:_ **I can think of a number of things, but none of them are presently in the cards for me.

 **_BadFeminist:_ **So what have you done to have taken sainthood off the table?

 **_NotASaint:_ **All the dreadfully ordinary things, I’m afraid. Nothing to write home about.

 **_BadFeminist:_ **I’d say originality in that line of business is probably overrated. You don’t want to be bunched in with killer clowns and horse fuckers.

 **_NotASaint:_ **Do you know there was a man that wanted to be a saint so badly he castrated himself just to stop himself… you know. WHACK.

 ** _BadFeminist:_** Whack? If in the morning I hear on the news that you’ve been found having slowly bled to death through the carpet while clutching your phone in your hand, I will be quite angry with you.

 **_NotASaint:_ **No need to worry. I’m not that dedicated.

 **_BadFeminist:_ **That's a good stance. I find dedication to anything but indecency to be greatly overrated.

 **_NotASaint:_ **Is that what makes you a bad feminist?

 **_BadFeminist:_ **There's a lengthy and occasionally sordid list of reasons for that, but my inability to grow a satisfying set of body hair has been the decisive one.

 **_NotASaint:_ **Tragic. Have you considered a graft?

 **_BadFeminist:_ **Oh, hell no, I'll always choose to fail to uphold my moral principles before I’d risk suffering for them.

Shaking his head, he chuckled at the irony.

 **_NotASaint:_ **Funny, I've been trying to do the exact opposite of that, with very mixed results.

 **_BadFeminist:_ **That's what happens when you pick a losing strategy. What were you thinking?

 **_NotASaint:_ **I was aiming for sainthood, apparently.

 **_BadFeminist:_ **Fuck sainthood. Every day I don't wind up in jail is a little victory in itself.

 **_NotASaint:_ **Been committed to a life of crime, have you? Was it tax fraud? Rodentnapping?

 **_BadFeminist:_ **I'm more of an occasional art thief, if you really want to know. Plus the odd drunk and disorderly. Disrupting family gatherings. A little homewrecking on the side.

 **_NotASaint:_ **Do you ever feel like the disconnect between who you are and who people expect and wish for you to be could never be bridged?

As soon as he hit 'send', the hair at the back of his neck began tingling. What was it about talking to an anonymous, invisible stranger that made him say things he had yet to say in confession?

 **_BadFeminist:_ **I'm a woman. What do you think?

 **_NotASaint:_ **Right. Sorry, I guess I'm feeling lonely and a bit sorry for myself tonight.

 **_BadFeminist:_ ** It's 2am on a Saturday night and I'm here talking to you about my body hair and your severed penis. It would appear we're both irredeemable failures, is what I'm getting at.

 **_NotASaint:_ **Nothing was ever chopped, just to be clear.

 **_BadFeminist:_ ** I'll keep that in mind. The thing is, I spend my days smiling and making small talk but beyond that I'm really not that great with people.

 **_NotASaint:_ **Me, neither. Or I guess I am, but in a one-sided and artificial sort of way that's both rewarding at times and immensely depressing if I ever stop to think about it.

Dear God, why was he suddenly spilling his fucking guts all over the place? Perhaps that was the root of his problem, though. Stopping. Thinking. For years, he'd been so good at following directions without a second thought.

 **_BadFeminist:_ **Artificial how? Too much makeup and a bad wig?

 **_NotASaint:_ **Something like that. Thank you for making it better tonight, though.

 **_BadFeminist:_ **My pleasure, your Honour. Leaving already? Have I successfully scared you off?

 **_NotASaint:_ **Not at all, but I must, regretfully. I have to be up early in the morning.

 **_BadFeminist:_ ** Sunday mornings are made for sleeping.

 **_NotASaint:_ **Not for me.

 **_BadFeminist:_ **Good night, then. Please refrain from chopping off any good bits in a futile quest for perfection.

 **_NotASaint:_ **I promise I'll do my best.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Jesus, will you stop!? I'm trying to be a shameless tease, over here."

> _"I’m not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost."_  
>  – Winnie the Pooh

"Please be seated." The priest smiled amiably as his parishioners settled down amid a flurry of creaking wood.

It was a low turn-out again, he noted to himself, but he'd learned to lower his expectations for midweek services. At least he wasn't bleeding believers these days. It had been an endless source of disappointment, in the beginning, to have so many people showing up once out of sheer curiosity, only to never return again. He'd been displaying his beginner's naivety, by not anticipating how long it might take for Father Patrick's flock to warm up to him, and those who did stay were only as assiduous as one could expect.

"Okay, then." He cleared his voice and straightened into a solemn posture. "Today's notices –"

The priest stiffened instantly as he felt the faint buzz of his phone in his pocket. Like a shock to his system, it made him trip on his words as his train of thought was shattered by the increasingly familiar jolt of anticipation.

"Uh, sorry, err…"

His phone whirred again several times in rapid succession, and he couldn't help but smile to himself. He'd come to relish her rapid fire sparks of wit. If only he could get away with checking his texts for a second… Berating his own inappropriateness, he rubbed his palm over his face to straighten his resolve.

Sticking an awkward hand below his robes and into his pocket, he groped around until he found the power button and glanced at his audience with an apologetic rictus.

"Yes, today's, uh… Today's notices."

He squinted toward his notes, citing the upcoming fundraising effort to support the diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes, St Ethelred's latest victory, the usual sick calls and the habitual plug for the parish newsletter, all the while acutely aware of the powered out device in his pocket, nagging at him.

By the end of service, he was positively chomping at the bit as he waited not so patiently for every last one of his parishioners to make their way to him, shake his hand and exchange a few banalities. It might have been the first time he was actually happy to have so few of them.

Ever since that first night they'd begun a discombobulated, nonsensical conversation, he'd been oscillating between self-recrimination and righteous indignation. After all, he hadn’t done anything wrong. While his mentors certainly wouldn't approve, there was nothing in their chats that crossed an explicit line. And yet… It had been merely hours since they'd last touched base. He couldn't possibly have missed her. It made no sense.

"–and if you still need volunteers for Saturday's fete, I'll be happy to help. My nephew had to cancel our lunch plans once again, the poor chap is drowning in work at this time of year."

_Damn,_ he's completely tuned out Mrs Pearce again. She was a talker, for sure, but he knew she meant well. A pang of guilt hit his stomach as he realised how distracted and aloof he must have appeared. It wasn’t like him, failing to show the most basic interest when one of his flock was confiding in him.

"I’m sorry about that,” he replied, forcing an awkward grin. “We'll be happy to have you. God knows I need all the help I can get."

"Father, you're incorrigible," she said with a muted chuckle. "See you Saturday, then."

"See you Saturday," he nodded. "Bye, now."

It took a very conscious effort on his part not to run on the way back to his office, to _finally_ have the few minutes alone he'd been yearning for. Fishing his phone out of his pocket, he dropped to his chair and impatiently pressed the power button.

Finally, a notification flashes on the screen. He had six new messages. _Six._

**_BadFeminist:_ ** You know, Officer, I put myself on a sex ban nearly a year ago now, and I'm honestly impressed I've still not tried to grind on strangers on the bus.

**_BadFeminist:_ **Remarkable self-restraint, if I can say so myself.

**_BadFeminist:_ **You should have known me in my 20s. I wouldn’t have made it a day.

**_BadFeminist:_ **Although I have to admit, yesterday I came this close to groping my morning regular while the kettle boiled.

**_BadFeminist:_ **He's in his 70's but he's got quite an impressive head of hair.

**_BadFeminist:_ **Nice figure too.

Chuckling to himself, he read the slate of messages again, his cheeks warming slightly in response to her overt provocativeness. How the hell did she expect him to respond to _that?_ Their flirting had been fairly tame so far, but she seemed to enjoy throwing offhand lascivious comments, and he had a nagging feeling things could all-too-easily derail. He had no choice but to trust his capacity to either steer them back to safety or to heed the signs and step away.

"Father?" Pam's voice sounded from the other side of the door. "I need your help with the bulletin board, the lock is acting up again." There was a short pause, followed by an urgent knock. "Father? Can you hear me?"

He took a leveling breath and, after a last regretful glance at his sceen, called back, "Yes, Pam, I'll be right there."

*******

**_BadFeminist:_** I was just informed of my father's impending nuptial.

She was reeling not only from the news, but also from the way it had been delivered: an early morning text from her Godmother that dripped of honey but still conveyed a note of warning. Was it odd that he was the first person she’d turned to? Perhaps, but honestly, who else was there who’d get it?

She’d never been so glad mornings at Hilary’s were so quiet. If she could get away with it, she’d lock the door, pour herself some wine and try to wrap her head around that sense of imminent doom.

**_BadFeminist:_ **To be honest, this is getting a little too Grimm Brothers for my liking.

**_BadFeminist:_ **Let it be known I'm not scrubbing any damn chimneys. There's already ample scrubbing going on in my life, last thing I need is to become my stepmother’s mistreated maid.

**_NotASaint:_ **Are you sure? A spot of cleaning might help you work off some of that sexual tension.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** Officer! I don’t believe that kind of insinuation is encouraged by the law enforcement code of ethics.

"You're turning into one of _them,_ I see."

She jumped at the sound of Joe's voice, the older gentleman who visited the café every morning for tea and conversation. Business had been picking up a bit in recent months, but there'd been a time when Joe was often her only customer for the day, and their morning chats often went beyond service-bound small talk.

"Sorry, Joe," she said with her most apologetic smile, stuffing her phone in her back pocket. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Too busy looking down at your phone to notice," he grumbled, sitting at his usual table. "It's a nasty habit, you know, ignoring the people who are right in front of you to play with that thing."

Joe wasn't wrong. Lately, she'd caught herself stopping dead in her tracks to type a random thought in the street, ignoring a gesturing patron, or reaching for her phone the moment she woke up in the middle of the night. Their conversation had quickly become a habit, and the more she depended on it to get herself through the day, the more she wondered about the unsaintly person behind the handle. She was becoming anxious to erase a bit of the distance caused by the faceless, voiceless nature of their exchange.

Ignoring the guilty impulse to covertly reach for her phone from behind the counter, she lavished Joe with diligent small talk and quips as he sipped his tea, waiting until he was out the door to reach for her phone and resume the conversation.

**_BadFeminist:_ **I just got properly told off, thanks to you.

**_NotASaint:_ **Wait, have I gotten you in trouble? But I hadn’t even started trying yet.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** And now I'm intrigued. What would your trying entail exactly, Officer?

**_BadFeminist:_ **I'm taking handcuffs as a given but what's your stance on ball gags?

**_NotASaint:_ **And risk missing all the filth coming out of your mouth? That would be a waste.

_Oh, but I'm liking you more and more everyday, Officer Saint._

**_BadFeminist:_ **You know, I once dated a man who couldn't believe I was carrying a vagina with me at all times.

**_NotASaint:_ **I'm honestly afraid to ask.

**_NotASaint:_ **What's going on with your family? Are you really upset?

**_BadFeminist:_ **Not upset so much as… appalled but resigned? It's a long-ish story and not a particularly thrilling one. But I'm guessing the chances my father will suddenly realise how much of a cunt his bride really is are slimming by the minute. The window of opportunity has been reduced to more of a small hatch.

**_NotASaint:_ **Are you close with your father?

**_BadFeminist:_ **No, but we're also not not close. Or we weren't, until recently.

_Don't,_ she berated herself. _Don't spill your stupid life story and family woes at the first prompt. What is_ wrong _with you?_

**_BadFeminist:_ ** God, this conversation is turning into a fucking bummer, isn't it? I'm sorry. Want me to describe my tits in great detail to chase it off?

**_NotASaint:_ **I'd rather you didn't. No offence to your tits, I'm sure they're great.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** I guess they're better than no tits at all. Probably. It's a bit of a toss up.

**_NotASaint:_ **You know, you can talk to me about things that bother you.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** But where's the fun in that?

**_NotASaint:_ **I'm actually a very good listener.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** Jesus, will you stop!? I'm trying to be a shameless tease, over here.

**_NotASaint:_ ** Is that really what you're looking for?

**_NotASaint:_ **I think maybe we both landed here because we were looking for something different than, say, swipe one way or the other for meaningless instant gratification.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** Speak for yourself. I landed here because I like working hard for my meaningless instant gratification. Sounds counterintuitive, I know.

**_NotASaint:_ **You don't want to tell me about your family at all, do you?

**_BadFeminist:_ ** Not really, no.

**_NotASaint:_ **Okay.

She smiled to herself at his simple, undramatic response. It was almost too easy, talking with him. There was so little pressure, she didn't even need to lie, and he never took her bait, which kept things interesting.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** Can I tell you about my tits now, Officer?

**_NotASaint:_ **Maybe later.

***

It was one of those days where all she had energy for by the time she got home was to kick off her shoes and drop face first onto the sofa. Her entire body was sore from standing up all day, the corners of her mouth tired of performing an obligatory commercial smile.

A month ago, she would have probably just turned on the TV to drown out the sound of her pestering inner thoughts, but now she had a superior option.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** So, today was a bloody stupid day, but I managed to get through it without humping any poor unsuspecting guy so I believe congratulations are in order.

**_BadFeminist:_ **What about you, Officer? Did you bang anyone up today?

He didn't reply immediately, but then she knew he was busy at this time in the evening. His occupation, like almost every aspect of his real life, remained a mystery to her, but she was getting a good grasp on his routine. She knew when to expect a reply from him. Thought about her quips and snares sometimes hours in advance. She also knew to expect him to be in a darker mood in the evening, although she had yet to address it directly.

What did it say about her that she could so easily shut out everyone from her inner life but all it took to welcome in this stranger was the capacity to differentiate between  her humour and her bullshit?

it was a deliberate choice, not to too closely examine the reasons why their nightly chat had become the best part of her day, the same way she wasn't ready to acknowledge that the little hints and tidbits she could work out or read between the lines were pushing her into an abyss of frustration.

_Just give me something. Tell me something real,_ she'd almost asked time and time again, knowing only too well that she would run for the hills if he demanded the same of her.

The fact of the matter was, her cynicism only ran skin-deep, and she mildly resented him for understanding how hollow her grand statements really were. She couldn't bear to give any more than she got.

God, she'd made another mess again, trying to solve the previous one, hadn't she?

***

The priest snorted as he read BadFeminist's last message, but his amusement soon fell flat. He knew it was a poor idea to keep her going when he was feeling as high-strung as he did, when the walls seemed to be closing in, throttling the light.

He'd been wondering for a while if she romanticized his occupation, whatever she thought it might be. The thought that she might be idealising, or even fucking _fantasising_ about him, like he'd caught himself doing against his better judgment, made him both lightheaded and a little queasy. The slim layer of justification he'd found for himself felt unbearably flimsy in the dark of night.

Perhaps it was just cheap whisky not agreeing with him – it always seemed to put him in a dark mood, but he'd run out of everything else. It was either that, or… it was time. He had to end it, whatever it was, before he was in too deep. Or before _she_ was.

**_NotASaint:_ **Will you stop with that? I’m not a soldier, or a policeman. My uniform is decidedly frillier – sorry to disappoint.

**_BadFeminist:_ **How frilly are we talking? Tall fur cap or curly wigs?

**_NotASaint:_ **Neither. My life is definitely not glamorous or TV-ready. I'm actually pretty boring.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** I beg to differ.

**_NotASaint:_ **How would you know?

**_BadFeminist:_ ** Someone's in a pissy mood.

**_NotASaint:_ **Perhaps I am, but I was just stating a fact.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** Okay. Thanks for setting me right, I guess.

**_NotASaint:_ **Look, I don't mean to depreciate our little chats because it's been more fun than I've had in a very long time, but perhaps we should quit while we're ahead.

The idea hadn't solidified in his mind until it was flashing across the screen of his phone, but now that he saw it spelled out, it felt both inevitable and frankly catastrophic.

It was for the best, he knew, his, and hers, too. He had absolutely no right hoping for her to fight him. To use some enticing faulty logic to circle around facts and reason. Find a way for him to keep her – keep _this_ – when he knew he shouldn't.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** Why.

No question mark, he noted, just a belligerent dot. Damn, she was good.

**_NotASaint:_** I've been thinking about it. I haven't been exactly forthcoming, and neither have you. I think the reason for that is we both know this is… a nice little delusion. A pipe dream.

**_NotASaint:_ **Whatever I thought this would be, in the beginning, this isn't it.

**_BadFeminist:_ **Sorry to disappoint.

Fuck, now he was hurting her feelings.

**_NotASaint:_ **Now, that's not what I meant at all. I was actually aiming for less.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** You know, this is actually funny.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** When I said I've put myself on a sex ban? I wasn't lying. It's been about a year now, and it's excruciating, but it's also what I need right now. I think.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** I told you I was a criminal. I've lied, cheated, hurt people, stolen from other women… I'm not even sure why. To kill time, to feel something, or just for validation, perhaps. But the trail of devastation I've caused, it's mine. There's no getting rid of it. Just… strategies and compromises to live with it without making it worse.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** But apparently, I'm still overreaching.

Her admission took his breath away. Not only did it resonate achingly closely with his own experience, but he knew that it cost her, laying these things out in the open.

**_NotASaint:_ **You're not overreaching, I'm just… fuck.

**_NotASaint_** _:_  I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I'm just having a bad night.

_Make that a bad year._

He got up to pace unsteadily around the room as he tried to untangle the knotted threads of his thoughts. Was he just being tested? Perhaps God himself had put her in his way to shake him up. That would explain a lot.

**_NotASaint:_ **I've taken steps to change my life, to change myself, and for a long time, it felt completely right. It just worked. For years, it worked. I've been on a relationship ban and sex ban of my own for a very long time. I thought I was doing good, but now, I don't know if it wasn't just that. A strategy to live with my shitty self.

**_BadFeminist:_ **Is it not working anymore?

**_NotASaint:_ **Not really, no.

**_BadFeminist:_ **Mine isn't either.

**_NotASaint:_ **What are going to do?

**_BadFeminist:_ **Are you seriously asking me? I don't have the first clue.

**_NotASaint:_ **I was expecting a dirty joke, at the very least.

Now his anger and bitterness were deflating, he felt a little sheepish, and ached to go back to their usual flirty dynamic.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** Completely missed the ball on that one, didn't I?

**_NotASaint:_ **I must have really freaked you out.

**_BadFeminist:_ ** Only a little bit. At least now you can block me with full knowledge of the facts.

**_NotASaint:_ **I think the moment has passed. You're stuck with me a little while longer.

**_BadFeminist:_ **Well, if you do, I'm glad we connected randomly that one time.

He smiled to himself as a pang of gratitude hit him in response to her generous statement.

**_NotASaint:_ **Me too. Against my better judgment.


End file.
